A reaching tree with swaying arms
That gently cradles moonlight,
The curve of each embracing limb
Seems to whisper calm reflection.

The gathering shades
of night’s blind substance
Tremble nearer in velvet hush
To brush against that moonlight
And warm their wandering hearts.

The ground below seems not to care
But softens its dark folds
To comfort she who hides beneath
In wordless sympathy.

The moon above shines over all
And casts out pale connection
That binds these travelers,
lost and fallen,
As time fades, forgotten.

Bright-eyed sassy creature
On a rampage all alone

Fills the night with monsters
And calls himself at home.

Their coarse fur and rugged growls
Defer him not an inch;

He throws his arm around them
And begins a choral cinch

To bring them on a journey,
A quest of epic scale,

To rescue zookeepers from jazz
And humanity from the pale

Of monochrome maturity,
A re-run with color melted

That traps unwitting minds
As we’re pressed into service

Between the pages of a moldy book
That churns history from the grind.

A ruby or some cheese,
perhaps a stingray too,

These things will surely do the trick
To bring life back to you.

A quest to find them—take my hand!
We’ve got to go today.

A tea towel for a map
Will send us on our way.

Simple but surprising,
That’s the magic bit:

It doesn’t matter if we reach the end
But you’ve got to take the trip!

Trust the honesty of nonsense,
You’ll find there was a door

Back to the easy smiles you knew
in childhood before.

That’s it my friend, you know
we’ve come right up to the end.

But there’s something bright within your heart
That he showed you how to win.

Even if you walk by day
Among those chalk depictions

That we call work and jobs and life,
You’ll keep that ruby hidden.

To bring a shaman back to life
A magic stone is needed,

And it’ll work on you as well:
The tale’s all but completed.

Let yourself take joy in nonsense;
The warmth is worth the escape.

Reality may be dignified
But it’s not a friendly mate.

Dance with lonesome polar bears
But don’t look crawfish in the eye;

Join our campfire of gentle madness,
We’ll sing a wholesome lullaby.

And when life is over,
we fall to seed
until the day we can live again.
‘But, when?’ cried the petal, ‘When?
And how can we set aside
the fear until then?’

Imagine... a leaf, in community on its branch. By connection with the living bark, it knows all that its brothers sense, and all it feels is known. To live is their unspoken challenge, pressing into the space of this material world in geometric, patterned shapes, generating a little more will to reach a little further and sense a little more of life’s interaction. To cease would be to return—from shape into impulse, the will to live, uncloaked from cell and atom.

Then, one day of thousands alike, the push of the wind lifts the branch in tensile motion, and the leaf’s veins break, grown brittle in time. It falls without moment, but its death was sooner still: as soon as those material threads were severed, it lost its thousand senses—those feelings of its brothers. It lost also its purpose in sharing its own sense. On the ground, alone, it faces life without cause.

Having taken form for a goal now erased, it is left to exist without connection to its source of meaning. Still, it may feel. Slowly, it may curl and crumble. What impulses it sends none may hear. Those who could are fallen and far, and perhaps, have forgotten.

When at last it is ground to dust, individualism gained will again be community in loss.

-

There you go, tree. I have written your story.

Seagull seagull in the pond,
What has brought you
To this place?

Did you fly for nights on end,
Wondering where the sea
Would begin?

Are you seeking some new role,
Grown tired of docks
And unanchored space?

Perhaps you thought
yourself estranged,
Unlike the coastal birds.

Like someone seeking Something more,
You turned your back
on the seafaring race

And flew across the charted land
For some other
Unknown place.

And landing here,
In the garden pond,
Paused for but a minute

To consider how to
Journey on and what
Life might hold within it.